As the early buzz over new music services such as Apple Computer’s iTunes fades, record labels and technology companies are struggling to turn the services into profitable businesses. [CNET News.com]
Sun sets up European RFID test center
Amid some privacy concerns, the Java advocate enters the retail-tracking game in Europe by opening a test center where companies can test their radio frequency identification systems. [CNET News.com ]
Music Retailer Seeks More Volume
Facing declining music sales, the Virgin Megastore chain is hoping new digital gadgetry will lure customers away from Internet file trading and into its stores. [Wired News]
Store based downloads… thought this was the idea in the pre-broadband era.
The MusiKube Personal Music Guide
Virgin Megastore is testing out the MusiKube Personal Music Guide at their store in San Francisco. The MusiKube is a customized wireless Pocket PC which connects back to a server that shoppers can carry around with them in the store and use to scan the bar codes on CDs and listen to samples of songs and read album reviews and other information. [Gizmodo]
Interesting though I don’t really see the difference or need for this compared to the system in use at Barnes and Noble which lets you listen to any CD by swiping it’s barcode at any end-cap display unit. I guess it’s nice to have the unit in your hand, but I can’t see this being that cost efficient for them. In fact, it might continue to justify the $18.99 I see all to often on CDs.
What is Google worth?
Experts at Wharton weigh in on whether the search engine champ’s strengths–its technology and brand–can offset economic and financial risks. [CNET News.com]
Only 80,000 Switched Telephone Numbers
Only 80,000 people applied to switch their telephone numbers to new carriers on the first day… [textually.org]
AT&T announces it’s EDGE
The carrier said the network would provide customers with average data speeds of between 100 and 130 kilobits per second.
The carrier noted the network technology is now available in areas served by its existing GSM/GPRS network, which AT&T Wireless said covers approximately 215 million potential customers across the United States, as well as in Puerto Rico and Bermuda. The carrier plans to deploy EDGE technology throughout its Caribbean properties in the near future.
Pricing for the high-speed data service will be similar to AT&T Wireless’ current GPRS pricing, including an unlimited access plan for $80 per month [RCR Wireless News]
Verizon cuts back on WiFi
Verizon is scaling back their plans to convert a thousand New York City pay phones into WiFi hotspots by the end of the year, cutting their target back to just 500. The reason, they say, is that coverage will be good enough with only 500 hotspots, something which is hard to believe. They’ve probably found that it’s costing more than they thought it would, and besides, they probably want to focus on building a customer base for their high-speed EV-DO cellular network which would more or less be in competition with WiFi hotspots. [Gizmodo]
Imitation as Flattery…
The interface is amazingly similar…
Who needs editors?
: Microsoft responds to Google News with Newsbot. I’ll have to live with it for a few days to judge its news judgment. [via JD]
iPod Rocks…
Great idea for a great product…
iPodrocks.com is Apple’s latest effort to win the hearts and minds of teen consumers interested in its iPod digital music player. It’s a new Web site and a fierce bit of guerilla marketing that combines high-impact graphics and animation along with several popular music tracks, and is chock full of creative ways that teens can try to convince their parents of how much they want, need and deserve an iPod this holiday season. [MacCentral]
Three funny UK Trojan Movies…
http://flash.trojangames.co.uk/tgames/movies/movie1.html
http://flash.trojangames.co.uk/tgames/movies/movie2.html
http://flash.trojangames.co.uk/tgames/movies/movie3.html
Can’t see these ever airing in the US… outside of the internet.
Happy Friday!
AT&T Wireless offering the Treo 600
It took a bit longer than expected, but AT&T Wireless is now offering the Treo 600 as well. [Gizmodo]
Time Warner OK with VoIP regulation
The company plans to begin selling Internet phone service in California next year and will cooperate with regulators by seeking a telephone operator’s license in the state, if necessary. [CNET News.com]
Prediction… if you don’t switch your landline to wireless, you’ll be using VOIP next year.
Friendster rivals merge; Evite enters
InterActiveCorp says its Evite service will compete with Friendster, and a San Francisco start-up acquires a competing personal networking service. [CNET News.com]
Evite 2.0, which will launch as a test or “beta” version, will mimic social networking sites, such as Friendster, with the introduction of personal profiles, called “My Info” pages, and bulletin board messages. The test phase is scheduled to end in the first quarter of the coming year.
“This new version of Evite (Evite 2.0) will then become a close competitor to Friendster, Craigslist, Emode, Meetup, etc., but still maintain a unique service,” Evite said in a statement.
Broadband numbers reach all-time high
Cable and DSL providers report their most fruitful quarter ever, adding more than 2 million subscribers to their high-speed Internet services. [CNET News.com]
Not surprising… You would not expect them to be going down…
Cable joins broadband price war
Aggressive promotions target phone company rivals as the industry mulls “tiered” services. [CNET News.com]
Comcast quietly testing a low priced competitive tier for existing DSL customers… should be interesting to see whether they can win many converts.
Kodak, Cingular in camera phone printing pact
Eastman Kodak unveils agreements with telecommunications company Cingular Wireless and mobile phone maker Nokia aimed at spurring users of camera phones to print more pictures. [CNET News.com – Communications]
Interesting move… Though they are charging for this service which seems totally ridiculous. Reiter comments wisely here…
Investors snub Friendster in patent grab
The chief executives of Friendster and two similar networking Web sites are commonly thought of as friends. All three–Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, in Mountain View, Calif.; Marc Pincus of Tribe.net, in San Francisco; and Jonathan Abrams, of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Friendster–invested early in Friendster, and all began their various networking sites with the understanding that the market would be big enough to let each specialize and not compete with one another directly.
Friendster was to be the purely social site where friends could introduce one another, match make and date. LinkedIn, which on Wednesday is expected to announce a Series A funding round of $4.7 million led by Sequoia Capital, would cater to professionals looking to network and hire. And Tribe.net was meant to integrate a classified ads model with a personal network.
Now that venture capital money and influence is raining on the start-ups, the friendly atmosphere among the three entrepreneurs is beginning to deteriorate.
As Friendster was hammering out details of its most recent cash infusion–a $13 million Series D investment led by Benchmark Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers–Pincus and Hoffman formed a limited partnership without Abrams, in order to purchase the so-called “Six Degrees” patent for $700,000. [CNET News.com]
Cablevision adds VoIP to broadband menu
Cablevision said Tuesday that it now offers Internet phone service to all of its cable broadband customers, giving it one of the largest potential markets for commercial voice over Internet protocol service in the United States.
As of Tuesday, the company’s $35-a-month Optimum Voice dialing plan is available to 1 million high-speed Internet customers in the lucrative New York market, which the company claims is the most widely available so-called VoIP plan in the United States. Cablevision launched Optimum Voice on N.Y.’s Long Island in September. [CNET News.com]
Are you sure your shows don’t just suck?
NBC Faults Nielsen for Reduction in Viewers
NBC asserted that the falloff in young male viewers this television season was caused by new participants in the Nielsen survey who are not following the right procedures. [New York Times: Business]
NBC claims that adding Hispanics to the survey has had a negative impact on ratings as they (Hispanics) participate differently with the special remote you get from Nielsen to track what you watch. Um. right…
I’m sure that adding quality shows like Coupling (cancelled!) and Whoopie really helped get that younger male viewer they were looking for and the ratings really are correct… it’s just being counted wrong. I’m also sure that videogames and online usage also had nothing to do with where the younger male demographic spends free time.